


Why Am I The One?

by TheWritingGiant



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:42:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingGiant/pseuds/TheWritingGiant
Summary: Just a little what-if, aftermath of 8x08.
Relationships: Jay Halstead & Hailey Upton, Jay Halstead/Hailey Upton, Kevin Atwater & Kim Burgess & Jay Halstead & Hailey Upton
Comments: 6
Kudos: 90





	Why Am I The One?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Everybody, what did everyone think of that episode? Best one of the series so far for me. This story is just a little thing that's been running through my mind since; hope you like it. Special shout out to lithiyarys over on tumblr for giving this a read through for me, thanks so much, you're the best!

Jay and Hailey sat in the break room, sipping coffee as they discussed the day. It had been a long one, and it wasn't even over yet. The new recruit, Andre Cooper, had gone off-book during an undercover op. And what was supposed to be simply gathering information turned into a car chase and a trip to Med for Cooper as a precaution. "He's a good kid," Jay frowned and took a slow sip of his drink.

"But?"

"You saw what went down, Hailey," he shrugged. "He got the info but going off like that, that chase, it could have ended a lot differently. I mean, I get following your instincts, but…"

She smiled a bittersweet smile. "I said something similar about Vanessa not so long ago."

"How's she doing out in LA?"

A few months back the young officer had sent her DNA to one of those ancestry websites, and it had gotten her a hit. Her mother had siblings and a mother in California, and Vanessa felt like she couldn't pass up the chance to get to know her family. It hurt, especially because she left less than a week after Hailey got back from New York, but Hailey understood Vanessa's choice. "She's doing good," Hailey took a sip of coffee. "She's not digging the patrol uniform so much, but she says there's a lot of good people out there watching her back."

"And her family," Jay hesitated. "They everything she hoped they'd be?"

"And more," Hailey smiled for real this time. "Sunday dinners, backyard cookouts, baking in the kitchen with her Grandma. All the things she dreamed of having when she was growing up."

Jay sunk back in his chair in relief. He hadn't been as close to the young officer as Hailey or Kevin, but he still missed her. She brought a lot of light to the district, to the team, the missed that these days. "So it's a pass on Cooper?"

"He's a good kid," Jay shook his head. "And I think he'll be a great cop one day. But he's got a lot to learn."

"So we splittin' up again?" She had been the one to take Vanessa under her wing; it would make sense for Jay to do the same thing. She hated the idea of losing him as her partner, but if they were honest, that would never really happen. Besides, she had him in many other ways now. 

"No," he replied. "I'm gonna talk to Voight. I think it'll be good to have him rotate through all of us, at least for now. We all got something we can teach him. Maybe we can teach each other too."

Hailey nodded and shot him a soft smile. It was a good plan. The door banged open, making them both jump a little as Adam stormed in.

"Oh, so you're the one making those dark clouds hang all over the bullpen," Hailey teased as Adam beelined to the coffee. That was the other part of why she and Jay had sought refuge in here. Too much static out in the bullpen to concentrate. It was mostly centred around Adam and Kevin's desks, but it was spreading.

Jay leaned back to peer through the window out into the bullpen. Kevin's head was down, working through the case file. He was always one of the quieter amongst them, but the set of his shoulders, and the frown he'd be wearing for weeks, they weren't him at all. "Nope," Jay declared. "Still looks pretty gloomy over there too."

"Shut up," the other man grunted from the coffee pot.

"What's going on between you two?" Jay asked. Things had been tense between them for weeks now, ever since the Jeff Duncan case and what went down with Officer Wheelan.

"It's nothing," Adam insisted.

"Bull," Hailey tossed a crumpled napkin at the man's head. "Spill it."

"We just got into it a little a few weeks back," he sighed and leaned against the counter. "I thought we'd be past it by now, but Kevin's being stubborn."

Hailey looked over her shoulder to the desks. Kevin was having a conversation with Kim, he was smiling as he listened to her talk, but it didn't meet his eyes, not like it usually did. She realized she hadn't seen him smile, that real, infectious, Kevin Atwater smile, since that case. 

"Yeah, stubborn is not exactly a word I'd use to describe Atwater. Ever," Jay crossed his arms over his chest. "What did you do?"

"What are you assuming it's my fault," Adam snapped.

"That," Jay pointed out.

"Look, some stuff got said during the Wheelan case, alright? But we're working through it."

"Oh yeah?" Hailey quirked an eyebrow. "You know you actually have to talk to work through things, right? I've barely seen you two exchange a word since then. And the storm clouds over your way, they've only been growing."

Ruzek turned away from them to doctor his coffee; they both wrinkled their noses at how much sugar he added. "Adam," Hailey tried again, softer this time. "What got said?"

He sighed. "When we were hiding out, trying to avoid getting shot at again, and the whole time Wheelan was talking. Just running his stupid mouth about how he was innocent. The shooting was just police being police. Jeff Duncan was non-compliant. He was in fear for his life and all that crap. Well, Kevin just snapped at the guy, and y'know, I tried to defuse the situation, keep things calm. It wasn't the time for that conversation. But then Kev turns on me, asking me why I was so calm. Basically told me that if I wasn't screaming down what happened from the rooftops like him, then I agreed with what Wheelan did."

Jay and Hailey exchanged looks while Adam took a sip of his coffee and dumped more sugar into it.

"But I mean, I don't, and I didn't. It was a bad shoot, and I told Kevin that. But he just kept on and on, so finally, I hit back. I asked him why he wanted me to be the one to answer for what happened. What Wheelan did, that isn't me. And Kevin should know that. After all this time, he should know that."

Adam finished his story with a huff of breath like a weight had been lifted off his chest. The two detectives remained quiet, they shared another look, and Jay knew they were both thinking the same thing. That feeling of being surprised, but also not. It wasn't a good feeling.

"Please tell me you're joking," Jay found his voice first. 

"Nope," Adam crossed his arms over his chest and glared.

Hailey looked at him, studied him. His furrowed brow, the twist to his mouth, and the glint in his eye; they all screamed of defiance. "What's this right now?" she challenged. "Is this you trying to double down on that crap?"

"Are you two serious?" he scoffed. "You got to be kidding me."

Jay stood from the table. "I'm gonna go talk to Atwater," he squeezed Hailey's shoulder on the way out.

Hailey dropped her head into her hands and dragged them through her hair. It was a bid, she knew, to calm herself down. Taking a breath, she sat back in her chair and fixed Adam with as neutral a face as she could. "Explain."

But he just shrugged. Hailey glared.

"I didn't shoot that kid, Hailey," he barked.

"I know that." 

"And I thought Wheelan was guilty, hands down," he went on.

"I know that too."

"I just don't get it, y'know," Adam kicked the chair Jay had just vacated. "Like, why isn't it enough to be a good cop anymore? Miller should have never sent us on that run. All that reform stuff, it's beyond our pay grade."

There it was. What had really been said. "It's not, though, Adam," she said gently. Yelling at him, like a large part of her wanted to, would get them nowhere. He'd shut down, and she'd get even more frustrated. "It's just not. We're the ones that have to follow through with it. Make sure it's being implemented in ourselves and our teams. And we have to call it out when we see others slipping back into old, bad habits. Or worse, making no effort to change at all."

"Then what's IAD for, huh?" he shot back. "It's their job to police this stuff."

"How can they do that job if we ignore it when it happens? If we don't report the bad behaviour that we see?" She countered. "What do we do? Wait for another innocent kid to die? There's a middle ground between that happening and being a snitch. That's the change that's happening here."

She could see Adam was ready to cut in again; his face contorted with anger, but Hailey raised a hand to stop him. "A year ago, what would have happened to Wheelan or any cop who was caught on camera doing what he did? Just think about that for a second. What would have happened to him?"

"He'd have been charged with murder," Adam insisted. "Just like he was gonna be."

"No," Hailey shook her head. "He probably wouldn't have been, and you know that. If you would put your anger and your frustration aside for one second and actually think you would know that."

He sighed. "It wasn't the time or place to have that conversation, Hailey."

"Why not?" she asked. "You were hidden away. Wheelan was deep in his delusion and trying to convince you that he was in the right. And Kevin, your partner, _your best friend_ , who just a couple of months ago was deep in the trenches against a bunch of racist cops, had to listen to that crap. Listen to a man defend murdering someone who looked like him, who could have _been him_ , or his little brother, or any kid from his block. Jeff Duncan is dead, and for what? Going seven miles over the speed limit. _Seven miles_ , Adam. Are you telling me you would have pulled that kid over?"

He shook his head, but once again, it was defiance. "Are _you_ really telling me you would have said any different? At that moment, in that situation, do you really think you would have taken whatever ground it was that Kevin wanted you to stand on."

"Yeah, I'd like to think I would have," Hailey got up from the table. "You saw that video, Adam, more than once. Didn't it make you feel sick? Because that's what it did to me. I felt sick all day after watching it. I still feel sick about it. Sick that it happened, sick that Kevin had to be in the same zip code as that man, and sick that something like that will probably happen again. So yeah, I like to think I would have taken that ground. Because it's the ground, I want to stand on. Why don't you?"

Adam huffed in response. 

"Look, I understand saying something in the moment, speaking in anger," she leaned against the counter beside him. "That's not something I'm innocent of. In a moment of anger, where some stranger was calling us all out, making it sound like we were incapable of doing our jobs, I said something stupid. And Kevin called me out. _And he was right to do it_. I learned how words could be interpreted. I didn't mean what I said how it sounded, Kevin knew that, but he was still right to give me that check. We talked it out that night. I apologize to him, and I promised him that I would be more mindful, be better. Because I want to be better."

"But why do we have to be the ones, Hailey?" He asked. "Kevin knows that that hate isn't in us."

"How can he be sure of that? How can anyone?" she returned. "On paper, Dave Wheelan was what all cops should be. By all rights, he was a good man. He probably didn't think that hate was in him either. Look what happened. It's why it's called unconscious bias, Adam."

Adam raked his hands down his face in frustration.

" _'We serve and protect,'_ that's our motto," Hailey continued. "Do you really think the people in that neighbourhood or anyone who's Black feels protected when they see a cruiser pass by them? When they're pulled over, or we rock up to them wearing our stars? They don't. They feel fear and dread; they ask themselves, 'Is this it? Is this the day I die?' And that's not right. It's gone on for too long."

"So why do you have to be the one, Adam?" She shrugged. "Because it's what we all have to be. We are a part of a broken system. And that needs to change. Now. Today. And the sooner _all of us_ realize that we're the ones who have to make that change, drive that fix, the better. The sooner you realize it, well, maybe you'll still be able to salvage your friendship with Kevin."

Without another word, Hailey turned heel and left the break room. She headed straight to Kevin's desk and hooked her chin over his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. He chuckled and leaned back in her hold. "Girl, you know I am always down for a hug, but what's this for?"

"Felt like it," she said and nodded to the room she'd just left. They could just make out Adam through the window, still leaning against the counter, deep in thought. "Sometimes someone says something, and it just makes you want to reach out. Let someone else know that you're there. That you love 'em, and you got their back, always."

"Love you too, Hails," Kevin reached up and squeezed one of her arms.

"He'll come around," she promised.

"I know," Kevin nodded. "I'm just not sure if I can still be there waiting when he does."

"That's fair." And it was, but she still hoped that he would be. Because that's who Kevin was, that's who Adam was. She felt him twist in her hold, craning his neck a little to peck her on the cheek. She squeezed her arms around him extra tight.

"Hailey," Jay's voice came from behind her on the stairs. "We gotta go. We got that meet with my CI in twenty."

Hailey slowly untangled herself from Kevin and went to grab her jacket. When she turned back, Jay had his hand on Kevin's shoulder and was whispering a few quiet words to the man. Kevin nodded, and the two partners left the room with that genuine Kevin Atwater smile aimed at them.

She waited until Jay pulled the truck out of the parking lot to ask. "So what did you say to Kevin?"

"Just that I'm here for him," Jay answered. "That _we're_ here for him. However, he wants us to be. I told him about Cooper, and the plan to partner him up with each of us for a spell, and what he thought about taking the first round."

"And?"

"He liked the idea," Jay smiled at her. "So I talked to Voight, who talked to Miller. It's gonna start on Monday."

It was only Wednesday. "And in the meantime?"

"He's with us," he told her. "And we start by showing him that we're trying to do better."

Neither one of them were big on showing each other a whole lot of affection at work, even in the privacy of the truck, but Hailey couldn't stop herself. She reached out and took the hand he had resting on the gearshift and brought it up to her lips, placing a gentle kiss against his palm before she let it fall back in place. But she kept her hand on top of it, rubbing her thumb over the blade of his hand. "We will be better," Hailey promised. For Kevin, for Andre, for everyone. Because enough was enough, it was time to be better.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Personally, the only one I can see calling Hailey 'Hails' and getting away with it, is Kevin (and _maybe _Stella).__


End file.
